Vita Magus

I apologize for the long delays between posts. I really do have lots of things going on and lots of things to show people. However right now I'd like to share with everyone the official blog for one of my classes, 3D Group Project. The idea with this class is that a group of about a dozen students (grads and undergrads) make a film from start to finish in 10 weeks (or less).
The film we are making is called Vita Magus and you can find the official blog with all the updates at http://vitamagusfilm.blogspot.com

So be sure to check it out! I should be posting more soon to how projects from past quarters and add some film reviews as well.

Long time coming

So I have been neglecting my blog, I know.  But I've always been wanting to post.  I've just been too busy.  even now, I should really keep working on my projects but I figured I had too many animations done and not posted that I really should do a massive update this week.  And next week... FINALS!  So you will see the final products of all the things I've been working on.
Also, someone gave me the idea to put tutorials online for various techniques.  I might just do that, once I figure out what to post.
Regardless, let's start with my walk cycles.  Yes, 2 of them.  The first is just a basic study with a tail, which is designed to help us figure out secondary motion.  If anyone out there things the tail or whatnot is automatically scripted to move, think again.  While big production houses might be able to set that up, often these things are going to be hand done.  Especially with students.
So... first the tail walk cycle:

Next up is a walk cycle that uses attitude.  It can portray anything at all, be it excited or sad or whatever.  I decided  to do an animation for a tough cowboy.  But I'm not really into cowboys... unless their robot cowboys.  So... here's a robot cowboy:

Now I bring to you a full character animation.  Sure the last animation was a full body robot rig, but I bound his hands to his hips.  This next animation focuses on controlling a character more, and acting.  Here, we have to show a change of emotion, and a shift of weight.

Speaking of weight... the next animation is all about lifting them.  Honestly, this animation isn't finished, I want to add a joke at the end, however it did satisfy the requirements of the assignment, which is to show a sense of weight and balance in a character, and use acting to make something look heavy. More importantly, we learned how to make a character look like they are holding something. We do this with Ik handles and locators, which can "attach" an object to another when used properly.

[Right now there is an error on Youtube, so I will upload this in due time.]

More?!  Well yes, there is lots and lots more!!  I have a project I will be uploaded parts of soon that involves a robot, a girl, and a junkyard.  Right now I'm calling it Junk, and it is only 3 shots.  In fact, it isn't even that.  it is really only 1 fully animated shot and 2 shots still "in production".  This is on purpose as it is to help students figure out how long it takes to make an animation in preparation for the senior project.  I will be posting some of the work on this later, so please look forward to it.

Finally, I have a dialogue animation.  It is not done yet, so what you see now is merely a Work In Progress (WIP) which is only on the second animation pass.  This animation is going to be an entry in the 11 Second Club. This will be done and entered into the contest by the end of the month, which is coincidentally at the end of the quarter as well.  In other words, this is my final project in this class.  Here is my current WIP.

One last thing, I have been working on a new portfolio website, as well as a new portfolio, resume, demo reel, business cards, etc. for my other class, professional development.  You can find my new site at DHixon.com, and I will be posting some things on here as well.

Well that's all for now, I have tons more work to do!  I should have work from my finals up by next week.  Don't forget to follow me on the 11 Second Club (look for my entry in the forums, under the name WeaklyAnimated).

Ta ta!

Sleep Comes After Death

So for anyone who is familiar with SCAD, you should know that students there are often so busy with work, they don't have the time in a day to do what needs to be done for their classes.  That is why God invented night.  It is normal - nay - required that SCAD students work overnight at least once a quarter, if not once a week... or more.  Last quarter freaked me out a little because, while I did work all night once, I never went without sleep in a 24 hour period.  However, this quarter I am paying for it.  Already I have had to stay up working overnight 3 times in one week... twice in a row even.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I enjoy the work (for the most part).  But sleep is something every SCAD student craves and rarely gets.  For me to have to lose so much sleep so soon is a little crazy, and I can only think about what the next few weeks will bring.  I suppose better time management is one option, but the reality of it is that I never should have taken 3 studio courses at the same time.  Unfortunately, I have to in order to graduate in a timely manner.  There is a reason students joke that SCAD stands for Sleep Comes After Death.
But for me it is more like a rite of passage.  If I can get through this, I can handle anything anyone can throw at me.  So far I've done well, and I will continue to do my best.  I am thinking of declaring a minor even, so that I have more classes to help me fill out the ones I have left.  Who knows, maybe I'll go for the MFA program too (which I am seriously considering), but we'll have to see what happens a year from now first.  I will, however, keep that goal in mind in case I decide I want to do it.
That being said, I wanted to let everyone know that they blog will not only be about my art and animation, as well as my development in the art world and my take on all thinks animated, but will also involve shorter posts similar to this one to help me illustrate problem solving.  This is actually a recommendation from one of my professors who urged us to use our blogs for showing how we can think and evaluate and solve the problems we run into in our art.
I should also have a walk cycle up soon, but it is a boring plain one that everyone in the world has on their demo reel already.  Just wait till you see the one I do with "attitude".

Stay tuned!

Basic 3D Animation tests

Yesterday I got to go to a talk from a Disney Interactive Director, and it was really inspiring.   He knew most of my teachers, and couldn't say enough good things about SCAD and the advantages we have here.  The day before I went to "AtlantAmation", a local film festival sponsored by SCAD, with many student films from SCAD.  While some were better than others, I was also inspired to make my own short film.  I may talk more about that later, but for now, I have several large projects looming over me.
Today, since I am knee deep in another quarter and already losing sleep over it, I will share with you 2 assignments I just completed.  These are both very simple animations using Maya, and are standard animation training exercises which you will see lots of.  The Bouncing Ball, and the Flour Sack.  The purpose of the bouncing ball is to understand some of the most basic principles of animation, those being timing, squash, and stretch.  If you look carefully, you'll see lots of bouncing ball animations online in every type of animation media out there, be it 2D or 3D.  The Flour Sack animation is designed to help develop your ability to emote through a character with no face and limited motion.  You are suppose to show a change in behavior or a reaction to an event or object through body language or pantomime.  Again, there are lots of animations out there of flour sacks.  I have a bouncing ball and a flour sack animation hand-drawn, which is posted on this site.  Just look for them.  Other than that, here are 2 new animations, this time in 3D!

GENERATE CHALLENGE

     All day Friday and into Saturday Morning, SCAD Atlanta hosted the GENERATE 24 hour challenge.  This is a sort of contest where they take each department (animation, sequential art, etc.) and split them into small groups of 3-5 people.  Each department has a company come in and host a challenge that has to be completed within 24 hours.  Each group is usually assigned a unique topic.  My group was the Patchwork Pirates (so named because of our hodgepodge of members), part of the animation department.  This year, Turner hosted our challenge, and the challenge was to create a series pitch within 24 hours.  The pitch had to consist of:

A 15-30 second animatic of the opening

A Treatment

A 15 second Elevator Pitch

3-5 Character design style sheets

A full color style frame

3 Merchandise ideas in 3D

And an outline for an entire season

     All this had to be completed within 24 hours of the start, which meant 10am Friday to 10am Saturday.  Each group within the department was assigned a different network to pitch the idea to, which meant we had to research demographics, etc.  We were the group everyone wish they could have been, because we had Adult Swim as our focus.

     We did have some trouble though.  First, our original idea was poopooed by one of the professors who was leading the event.  The problem was the story idea had (unknowingly to the rest of our group) been used before by one of our members for various projects/classes.  So we had to rework the idea, change some of the character designs, and make things more edgy.  When we had finished that, we pitched the idea to the head of Adult Swim (or was it Turner Animation?) who loved it!  The second problem was that the member with the most experience in 3D and animation left for a previous engagement.  Unfortunately, another member also had to leave due to medical reasons.  That left 3 of us to do a huge task, and none of us were very experienced.

     Somehow we managed to pull though.  With the help from a friend, we managed to complete everything with an hour to spare.  Personally, I still think the look was too "cutesy", but since I was dedicated to doing the animatic by myself, I couldn't keep rejecting images so I just worked with what I got and tried to make it work.  Adult Swim usually does cheap, simple, exaggerated, and over-the-top animations, which are edgy and stylized.  I think we should have really pushed this more, but we would have needed more members involved through the entire project to assure the look we wanted.  However, I think we still managed to pull out a very good project with the limitations and complications that arose.  Since we did all that work, I won't go into presenting all of it again from scratch.  However, I will post the final PDF of the project as well as the animatic here, so you can see what we did.  Enjoy!

The Patchwork Pirates are:

Karen Chesney

David Hixon

Alston Jones

Colin Wheeler

Whitney Wheeler (no relation)

Special Thanks to Jenna Zona

View the PDF here!